Losing Control
by krissduhh and ehkah
Summary: With the Brotherhood under new leadership and the emergence of a deadly powerful mutant, Xavier's team is once again threatened. Two women come into their powers, and the X-Men's lives. Sabertooth & OC, Nightcrawler & OC. Please review.
1. DISCLAIMER

**Disclaimer: We do not own X-Men, we only own the characters for X-men that we made up like Kaia and Marcela, and whoever else we come up with.**

**Authors Note: This is rated M for language, violence, sexuality, um and stuff. Just to let everyone know this isn't just based on the movies, its more along the lines of a compilation of everything X-men. We will try to be as accurate as possible but let's face it, we are not experts on the subject, and it is our story so if we want to change something for the means of this story then we will. Please don't take this so seriously that you want to criticize it because we got some details wrong. We can't always be right. And I say we because there are two of us writing this, that's why our screen name is Krissduhh and Ehkah. So if it seems like two different writing styles that would be why. And since it is two of us writing this, sometimes it may take a few days to post new chapters. We hope you enjoy it and please review and let us know how you like it.**


	2. Chapter 1: Marcela

**Authors Note: Okay here is the beginning prologue to one of the main characters. We hope you enjoy it, and please review.**

_Staritsa, Russia. September 14, 1939_

"Push , Marcela!" screamed her husband. She wanted to scowl at him, or scream, she was not sure. Sweat dampened her brow and shimmered across her naked body. She gritted her teeth and bore down. Clenching all the muscles that could aid with the birth of her child. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the sheets of the birthing table. She worked hard to control her breathing as she pushed with all her might. Her body trembled with the effort. She was already exhausted from pushing, but she kept going. She had been in labor for the last six hours, surely any moment now it would be over. She held her breath as the babe's head started to crown, finally. She threw her head back and screamed loudly, almost in triumph, but mostly pain. She pushed again and more of the babe's head slid forward. She felt herself rip and pain so hot tore through her. She screamed again. She gripped the sheets as she fell back against the pillows.

She panted loudly, and closed her eyes. _Why should I have to go through this when I already know that the child is dead?_ She thought to herself. Tears stained her pretty heart shaped face, and a sob caught in her throat. She took a moment to find strength to continue on with the birth of her still born child. She leaned forward again without a second thought. She was afraid she would loose her nerve if she didn't do this now. With a growl of effort she pushed as hard as she could. The rest of the head and the shoulders pushed trough the birthing canal.

Instantly her husband's greedy hands reached for the child. Before the midwife could protest his actions, he pulled the babe the rest of the way from Marcela's quivering body. As he pulled the child free of Marcela he only damaged her more. She felt herself rip more then she had obviously already had. She wailed with pain and gripped the sheets tightly. She felt the warmth of her blood leaving her body as well as her child. Nausea gripped her like the hands of death on the child. Marcela whimpered as she fell against the pillows, exhausted.

She watched with a hooded look as her husband's happiness turned into dark anger. "Dead. Another child is dead. Another child that you have birthed is dead. Marcela you are more then worthless to me. What am I to do now? I have married you so you can birth me sons. But you can't even birth a child who can take their first breath. Worthless." said her husband as her passed the baby to the midwife. Every word he spoke to her was laced with hatred. More tears fell down her face, she felt worthless and weak.

She hadn't noticed that she passed out. All she knew is that a vision gripped her mind as soon as she had watched her unloving husband exit the room in a powerful rage. The vision of her birthing another stillborn played in her mind again as it had the night she had conceived. She had been having visions like this every since she could remember. She never voiced it to anyone from fear that they would consider her to be a witch. She only had visions of herself and a few other people she had never met anyways, no real reason to tell anyone about them.

The only problem was that most of her visions where of terrible events. When she was seven she had her first vision. She had predicted that she would fall and break her leg, and sure enough a month later the vision played itself in real life. The accident happened down to the exact detail of her vision. She had been walking with her mother through the busy streets of Moscow when a horse spooked in front of her, knocking her to the ground. And just like in the vision the horse reared up and came down on her leg.

It had been a blessing that she had healed correctly from the incident. She had other visions such as her first blood month, her first heart break which had made it hurt all the more knowing she was going to fall in love and later become heartbroken over it. Her wedding day which was the worst moment in her life knowing she was going to have to married into an unloving, semi abusive arranged marriage. And her first child's still birth as well as her second child's still birth.

As always, after the terrible event happened in reality, the vision would replay itself in her mind almost as if making it final.

She opened her eyes and was greeted with the frightened pale face of the midwife. "Mistress, why is it you birth nothing but dead children?" asked the midwife. Marcela grimaced. No one in Moscow could put it nicer than _dead children_. "How long was I out?" asked Marcela instead of answering. How could she answer a question when she honestly did not know the answer? "Only a few minutes." replied the midwife, forgetting about her original question. The midwife the busied herself with cleaning up the after birth. A few minutes later the midwife assessed Marcela's injuries, only to find a minute rip in the birth canal. Confusion changed her countenance. There had been so much blood, so much screaming, and for what? A minute rip?

The midwife examined her closer, puzzled at seeing newly formed scar tissue there. She has been a midwife for thirty years, she knew what new scar tissue looked like, and this was it. She then looked up at Marcela perplexed, she had never seen someone heal that quickly. Granted Marcela still was not fully healed from the birth, but she was close. The midwife considered if she need to actually stitch Marcela up, or if she just should see how long it would take for her to completely heal on her own. Weighing her options she decided to do the latter.

Marcela closed her eyes and let the midwife do her work. As soon as her eyes completely shut a vision gripped her. She held her breath at first, confused, her visions usually never came so close together. She let go of her breath as she was completely caught up in the vision.

_She was asleep when he entered her room. He stumbled over her vanity chair and the noise woke her with a start. She was not surprised to see him there, smelling of strong liquor, holding something metal in his hand. "I hate you, Marcela." he slurred as he stumbled over to her bed. "You are nothing but a worthless piece of shit. Can not even bare me children. I only married you because I hoped you would be as fertile as that cow you call mother. She has graced your father with three sons and two daughters, and all you grace me with is death! I am going to rid myself of you tonight, once and for all." he said, malice dripping from his voice. He raised the knife high above his head as he made it to her side. At an alarming rate the knife came down. _

The vision left her, and she sighed. She knew eventually that he would try to kill her. The vision only confirmed it. She didn't know when other than it was going to happen sooner or later. Sooner she hoped than later.

A week later it happened. His knife came upon her at an alarming rate, towards her heart. But then the knife stopped inches from her heart. Her eyes widened in curiosity and general fear. Suddenly she felt an overwhelming heat envelope her body. Sweat prickled her brow and her breathing turned labored. Abruptly her body began to tremor slowly, but then the tremors turned into violent convulsions. Power that she had never felt before coursed through her body.

She had never felt anything like the power that coursed through her. For some reason she knew that what ever it was, it was something that could save her life (seeing how it had stopped the knife inches from her heart). Even through she convulsed, her hand trembled towards him. The tips of her fingers touched the knife's blade. The metal was cool and smooth. She let her fingers travel up the blade and onto his hand. Once her skin felt his skin she sighed in relief, like she had found something she had been searching for a long time for. He was warm to her touch, and strong, probably the only thing she liked from this man who had done nothing but make her life miserable.

Her gaze on his face was intense and her touch burned his flesh but he couldn't move away. And then her convulsions stopped. Her hand firmly gripped his and she unleashed what ever power that she had into him.

It was as if time slowed down. Her skin burned with the power as it flowed from her into him. He shrieked terrified and in pain. He tried to pull away from her but she was too strong now. She gripped his hand again more forcefully, afraid he might get away from her. She had no idea the pain she was causing him but she hoped he hurt. She hoped he suffered like she had suffered, and maybe even more then she had suffered.

His shrieking grew louder and harsher. She felt as if he was dying from the inside out, which he was. Her power was causing him to collapse in on himself. Every muscle in his body contracted to the point where his bones began to crush from the force. The sound of his bones snapping piece by piece was sickening, but she didn't let go, didn't look away. Then his skull began to crush from the contraction of his facial muscles. His teeth cracked and chipped away. He choked on his tongue as it restricted back into his throat. He tried to open his mouth to scream but couldn't.

Then his body expanded, his skin splitting open and he felt like from the inside out he was burning even though he wasn't. The invisible flames slowly turned him to ash. She let go of him as he died. Nothing was left of him other then a gradually disintegrating husk of ash. It was like he had literally been blown to ash from the inside out. She stood up from her bed and walked around him as he finally fell into a pile of his dusty remains.

She trembled with fear and heard foot steps coming up the stairs to her room. She had no time to evaluate what just happened. She grabbed a cloak from her closet and fled her home through the window to never look back.


	3. Chapter 2: Kaia

**Author's Note: Sorry if the chapters seem really choppy. It's hard to write in a way that accomodates both of our writing styles and can fit both characters in evenly. This is basically the introduction to the other character Kaia. Please review.**

_Homosassa Fl., October 31, 2003_

The pain dug into her just below her stomach like a belt of a thousand fingers kneading into her skin. As the pain increased, the girl twisted and groaned, wrapping her sheets about her legs in a tangled mess. The beginnings of nausea struck her and she stumbled in untangling herself from the sheets to make it to the bathroom. She got halfway before the nausea suddenly subsided to make way for a pulse of heat throbbing deep in her belly. She fell to her hands and knees, her fingers convulsing in the carpet threads. The hot pain spread from the center of her body outward with each throb. She let out an almost inaudible yelp, cut off from her inability to draw in a breath. She sobbed dryly, pulling herself toward the bathroom with as much energy as she could gather. If only she could make it to water, cool herself down, maybe it would all just go away. She felt the cool tile of the bathroom floor beneath her scrabbling palms and renewed her efforts to propel herself forward. She pulled herself up the sink, knocking over sundry toiletries.

The hollow sounding thumps hitting the floor woke only one of the other 3 occupants of the house.

The girl had just placed her shaking hand on the faucet when the heat waves made it to her heart. Her heart raced, thumping harder and faster every second, while the heat and pain continued to fan down her arms and legs. She moaned, rocking back and forth, gripping the edge of the sink. Suddenly, a sharp electrifying pain ran through her veins, mixed with her very blood. It followed the path of the heat down to the tips of her fingers and she couldn't take anymore. Her eyes widened and she screamed.

At that moment, multiple things happened: The storm that had been predicted by the nightly news only hours ago began and the preceding thunder drowned out her screams. A blinding blue-white glow filled the air as electricity arched between the girl's hands, hot tears streaking down her face at the sensation of her hands burning. And a little boy, the only one to have woken in all the commotion, walked closer toward the open door of the bathroom that connected his room to his cousin's to see what was wrong. Then there was a crackling flash.

She could feel that her eyes were open but saw only white. She felt the cold tile of the bathroom floor against her cheek. She felt blissfully, yet horrifyingly, empty and all she could think about was that damned attempt at a first kiss with Trent Guthrie in 8th grade.

_They had met on the lunchroom loading ramp before the bell rang and talked for a while about the weird science teacher who wore socks with his sandals and the strangely muscular woman who taught music appreciation until they tapered off into awkward silence. He had leaned in slowly, giving her anxiety time to build, and each time his lips touched hers there was a spark. Not that romantic spark of chemistry described in novellas but like being shocked by a car door handle. They had laughed uncomfortably and rubbed their hands over their mouths then tried again with the same result. Trent was visibly frustrated and tried once again only to be shocked on the lips and have the short blonde curls on his forehead stand out and crackle against hers. "What is wrong with you!?" he yelled before grabbing his books off the ground and stomping into the lunchroom. She just stood there, not sure what to say or if she should say anything at all. She just sat on the concrete of the loading ramp with her head resting on the hand rail wondering what was 'wrong with her.'_

With the end of that memory, her vision returned. She just lay there, blinking the last bits of blur away. When her eyesight cleared, she went completely still, not believing what lay not 8 feet from her own prone figure. She could make out the tousled auburn hair and red and white pajamas of her younger cousin, Aaron, turned away from her.

Her heart stopped and she slowly moved to raise herself from the floor, not taking her eyes off the boy. Her mind was screaming _He's not moving, he's not moving. _She fell back to the floor with a hiss of pain and realized her hands were bright red and burned, covered with her own blood, all except for her nails which were almost glowing white and translucent in contrast. She drew herself up to her knees and looked at the figure of her cousin, still laying on the floor. She called out to him softly and moved slowly toward him, her breath hastening the closer she got. Then she was kneeling over him, not wanting to touch him, but reached out a shaking hand and brushed her fingertips over a few strands of his downy hair. She knew then somehow that she had killed him. The blood on her hands might as well have been his. She heaved dry sobs, rocking back and forth, moving her damaged hands from her knees to right above the body of her cousin, having no idea what to do. Fear clutched her heart and she suddenly felt trapped in the darkened room. The lights had gone out. She ran back toward her room through the narrow bathroom and glanced back at Aaron's body. That glance caused her to slam her right shoulder into the door frame and she screamed at the sharp pain that coursed through her arm.

There was no thunder to dull the sound this time. The other two occupants woke and made to running up the stairs.

She ran into her room and spared a look around at nothing in particular. She wondered where else she could go. There was no way she could stay and face the two people who had raised her for almost as long as she could remember and tell them she had killed their son. She could hear footsteps padding up the stairs and rushed to her window. She opened the window and was greeted by the sound of thunder and heavy rain hitting the roof. She climbed onto the rooftop, the shingles slick with rain, and slid down toward a nearby tree. She threw herself the distance between the roof and the tree, arms outstretched, and grabbed onto a branch to lessen the distance between herself and the ground. She cried out as the wounds on her hands opened again. She dropped to the ground on her right side but pushed herself up before her shoulder began to throb again. She had almost made it out of the front yard when her aunt's screams pierced the night air.

Fresh sobs racked her body and she broke into a sprint, running barefooted down the street with the rain soaking through her clothes. She didn't stop running until the lightning illuminated a nearby park. Exhausted, she pushed forward just enough to crawl into the waist-high metal tube on the playground. There she collapsed, dripping, her chest on fire. As she gasped for breath, her mind was blank of any thought but for the bleeding of her hands and the burning of her lungs. She lay in the play tube for nearly an hour and had almost fallen asleep when something abnormal sounded outside. The sounds of a whirring engine and rushing air broke the spell that the pounding rain had put her under. Her heart started racing and she lay stiff. The ground vibrated once quickly and then all was as silent as it had been. She buried her head in the crook of her arm and sighed from relief.

"Kaia," a resonant voice sounded and she flew upward, back against the domed wall of metal. Her hands pressed flat against the cold metal and she fought the urge to scrunch her eyes up tight and scream. She could see the shadow of multiple figures through the rain and thought _Don't come near me, don't come near me _in her mind like a panicked mantra.

As the five figures approached from both sides of the tube, a red headed woman dressed in a tight fitting, worn leather jumpsuit with light green trim reached a hand out toward the metal. She was attempting to use her telepathy to read Kaia's thoughts. Upon touching it, the woman yelped and flung herself away. Her arm went limp and was throbbing with pain. "Jean are you alright?" said a different man wearing a visor who guided her away by the shoulders.

"Kaia, you must calm yourself. We are here to help you." said the voice again, coming from an older man in a wheelchair.

"Professor Xavier only wants to help you child," said a woman with a wash of white hair, dressed like the rest of the group but with a silvery cape over her shoulders. Her eyes went stark white and she rose her hands to the sky. The rain dissipated immediately and the woman's eyes returned to their original brown. "As do we all."

"Thank you, Ororo," Xavier said.

Kaia could see almost none of these people. She was frightened by the sudden silence and was sure these people could hear the loud beating of her heart.

"Leave me alone please!!!" she screamed. "You can't help me, no one can help me! I've killed someone!" Her sobbing broke out fresh once again and she was embarrassed at her show of weakness in front of strangers. Xavier closed his eyes and concentrated on the girl huddled in the playground equipment. He saw the jumbled, confused images of the past hour replaying themselves in her head and saw the pain inflicted both by the appearance of her powers and the loss of her cousin.

"I am sorry for your loss and know you are in pain, Kaia but I also know that what happened was not your fault. The emergence of one's powers can be overwhelming. But I assure you we can help you. We can give you a place to call home and can teach you how to control your gift," said Xavier, willing his chair closer to the tube.

_How does he know what happened? How can they help me? Are they taking me somewhere? Get away from me! Get away from me! _Xavier grimaced at the thoughts assailing his mind as he searched to find a way to help the girl.

"Kaia, I am a telepath. I can sense how confused you are and I can assure your safety. You must calm down," he repeated.

Kaia breathed deep, shuddering breaths and put the heels of her hands to her head in frustration. "Please …" she muttered, not sure what she was asking for. The white-haired woman carefully tapped the metal around the girl and could feel no charge running through it. She knelt down so Kaia could see her and just stayed there so as not to frighten her. Kaia's bloodshot eyes met the woman's and she just watched her for a while.

"Can you really help me?" she asked at last.

"We can try," the woman replied. She smiled. "We are just some of many that know exactly how you feel."

Kaia scoffed and looked away. How could anyone know _exactly _how she felt about this? But what other options did she have? She couldn't possibly face her aunt and uncle again. Would she rather live on the street hiding in playground equipment for as long as it takes the police to find her?

She moved out of the large pipe to sit at the opening and get a good look at everyone. The woman in the cape stood at Xavier's side, one hand on his shoulder. The red-haired woman stood with the man with the visor by her side, holding onto his arm further away from Kaia now. The fifth figure she had glimpsed earlier had gone. She straightened up and looked around seeing no one else in the area. Instead, to her amazement, she saw a large, black jet almost indiscernible in the night. The ramp was lowered and light shone down its stairs. Whoever the fifth was must have retreated back into the dry interior of the jet. Kaia stood on shaky legs tired from so much running and wrapped her arms around herself. She shrugged not sure how else to put it. Ororo smiled and held out a gloved hand. Kaia looked at it warily and shook her head in refusal. She opened her mouth as if to respond but just looked down and started her walk toward the jet.

Climbing the stairs she was bewildered at her circumstances. She heard mumbled words of encouragement from various people but it all sounded like drowned out static. She wandered to a passenger seat in the back corner of the cabin and brought her knees up to her chest. Everyone had at that point given up trying to calm her, took their seats and the engines of the jet hummed to life. Once they had begun the flight, someone approached Kaia with a dry blanket. He placed the blanket over her shoulders and sat across from her. Drawing the blanket tighter against her rain soaked body, she glanced up and couldn't draw her gaze away from his face. His skin was a dark shade of blue and his irises were a light golden color, almost glowing even in the dim light of the cabin. He noticed and grinned introducing himself.

"Kaia? I'm Kurt," he said in a voice tinged with a German accent. "Are you… doing alright?"

She blinked and coughed slightly. "I'm sorry if I was staring," she said in almost a whisper.

"It's okay. I'm actually used to a much stronger reaction," Kurt replied. As he spoke, Kaia noticed a movement behind him and realized it was a forked tail the same color as his skin. She took a longer look but continued to gaze at his face. He reached toward her with a hand with three slightly clawed fingers. With the back of his hand, he brushed a mass of her dark, wet hair out from in front of her left eye. He brushed her cheek with that gesture and her skin flinched in surprise. She could feel a fine fur covering his hand that must have been what spread over his body. His eyes saddened and he withdrew his hand slowly.

"Do I frighten you?" he asked.

She took a moment to look back at him and replied "No."

His face lightened in a look of surprise, as if he didn't expect to believe her. He then reached out and lightly turned her wrist over. He winced at the sight of the wounds on her palms and began to wrap them in gauze pulled from the pocket of his long leather trench coat. Then he met her gaze and stared at her as she would expect she had done to him.

"There's nothing that interesting about me," she said.

"I beg to differ," he said. "Your eyes are… extraordinary."

She blushed but looked clearly confused. Her eyes were a very ordinary shade of green. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Just one second," he said and then vanished with a bamf! sound. She sat up with a start, surrounded by misty, blue smoke. Just as quickly as he disappeared, he reappeared back in his seat.

"I'm sorry to surprise you with that," he apologized, realizing she was clearly startled. "I'm a teleporter."

That didn't exactly clear things up to someone who just came into her powers. Kurt handed her a folding pocket mirror. She glanced at him before opening it. She gasped as she saw her eyes speckled through with silvery white, her left iris containing a large starburst of white. She clumsily handed the mirror back to Kurt and put her head on her knees. Kurt frowned and sat back in his seat. Neither of them said anything for the rest of the flight to Xavier's mansion in Westchester.


	4. Chapter 3: Trying to Move On

**Author's Note: Um sorry it took so long but hopefully this chapter makes up for that. um... We hope you enjoy it. Sorry it sounds choppy, we are still working on putting it together where it flows easier. Well please review... we beg you.... Kaia and Marcela are both in this chapter so hopefully there is no confusion there. Again please review.**

She stepped into the shower, welcoming the warmth of the water as it fell against her chilled skin. Once she came to stand beneath the shower head, warm water cascading on her, she closed her eyes in thought. She was glad to have the shower, the water helped hide her hot tears and the sound of it hitting the tile hid any sobs she let out. She could not help herself. She needed to cry, and she needed to be alone. She opened her eyes and stared down at her hands. Her hands were scabbed over, and she frowned. She remembered the pain of her powers bursting forth from her hands. More painful still was the memory of her cousin's curls on her fingertips as he lay lifeless outside of the bathroom. She choked on a sob and closed her eyes again. She hugged herself as she slid to the ground beneath her. I am a killer, she thought, making the tears fall faster then they were before. It had been almost two weeks since she had come to the mansion, and everyone made her feel at home. Which only made her feel worse than she already did. She had thought that they would resent her but they didn't. Most really wanted nothing more than to help her. She opened her eyes again. She didn't feel she deserved their help. "Why did you have to die?" she whispered as she stared at the drain thinking of her little cousin, Aaron. She sighed through her tears, and stood back up. She turned the nozzle so cool water hit her, drawing her skin taut, and leaned against the tile wall of the shower, letting the water beat her in the face for a second or two. She then leaned forward to grab a bottle of shampoo. She opened the bottle and smelled sweet roses. A smile lit her features for a brief moment. And then she thought of her cousin again. She knew that it wasn't something that she was just going to get over. She wouldn't expect to get over it. She had killed her cousin, and that was something that was not going to just disappear from her mind. She washed her hair and thought about how she used to play hide and go seek with him. How, when he was much younger, he'd sit in her lap as he played with his building blocks. It made her heart feel heavy to know that she was never going to be able to play along side him, hear him laugh in delight, or hear him at all for that matter. Whatever problems she had with her adoptive guardians, she had nothing but a familial bond with Aaron. She closed her eyes to try to control her tears. She knew that no matter how much she cried it was not going to change anything. After she washed her hair, she quickly finished up. She stepped out, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself. She shivered as the air outside the shower began to chill her skin quickly. She went to stand in front of the mirror in the mirror showed the reflection of a blob through the condensation that had collected on it. With a rag she wiped some of it away so she could look at herself. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, which only made the white starburst in her left eye more vivid then it already was. It was a going to be a daily reminder that she had killed her cousin and that she was a mutant. She could live with being a mutant, after the initial shock it was easy to accept, as unbelievable as that sounded. But knowing that she had snuffed out an innocent's life, well that was going to be the hardest thing to live with. Tears welled up in her eyes again and she quickly blinked them away. Her hands stung suddenly and she inspected them.

"Goddammit!" she muttered, seeing dots of fresh blood begin to well up. The healing layer of skin had been washed away during her shower apparently. She opened the door gingerly with her fingertips, the top of her towel bunched closed underneath her arm, and was met by Kurt, wearing just jeans with a fresh towel flung over his naked shoulder. She yelped and stumbled back into the doorjamb.

"Oh, _es tut meir leid_!" he exclaimed, eyes flickering over her inadvertently then looking away quickly. Even with her face downcast now, he had seen her blood shot eyes for long enough to know she'd been crying. Forgetting his embarrassment, and hers for that matter, he placed his hands on both her shoulders and ducked his head to get a better look at her face. Her eyes widened and she straightened her shoulders as he asked if she was alright.

"I'm fine," she said with a forced grin that more resembled a grimace. She adjusted the towel around herself and winced. She had grasped at the towel when Kurt surprised her and smudged the bright white with streaks of blood. Kurt frowned.

"Did you hurt yourself?" he asked.

"No," she shook her head. "It's just my scars opening up again."

"Well come to the kitchen with me. I'll find some gauze," he gestured over his shoulder and stepped toward the top of the staircase.

"Umm, give me a sec?" she asked, sidestepping further down the hallway back toward her room, this time with a genuine smile of nervousness on her face. Kurt grinned sheepishly and nodded, heading downstairs. Kaia walked down the hallway and, two doors later and around a corner, arrived at her room. The Professor decided to give her a room of her own. She was glad to sacrifice her own bathroom for the privacy it allowed her. Most of the student dorms housed around two or three people. She wasn't very social normally and in this abnormal situation, she was even less social. The X-Men and the Professor were the only ones she knew were aware of the circumstances surrounding her arrival at the mansion. She wasn't sure about the students so she didn't give them a chance to find out from her by getting too friendly with them just yet.

After wiping her hands on the already soiled towel, she dug quickly around in the drawers full of clothes that Ororo had been kind enough to buy for her. Kaia had been borrowing clothes for a couple of days since being seen shopping wouldn't be smart, even as far away from her home as New York. She couldn't be seen. She couldn't be Kaia Yulet anymore. She denied that surname now that she had killed the only person she felt a member of that family with. When asked, Kaia gave Ororo her sizes and told her just jeans and t-shirts would be fine. Ororo bought what she requested but insisted on buying some brighter, nicer things Kaia knew she wouldn't ever wear. She retrieved a plain grey shirt and denim shorts before her hands could ruin some more things that she still didn't consider hers.

After making her way downstairs, she stopped for a second at the spacious living room. Bobby and Piotr were arguing over the remote. Bobby suggested going into the backyard to settle the matter of whether to continue watching the news or change the channel to one more sport orientated. Kaia laughed silently. There was never any contest if Piotr were involved. Nevertheless, they walked out the shaded glass doors to the backyard. Kaia was turning to leave when a picture flashed on the screen that almost caused her to drop to the floor. She would have wailed but the kitchen wasn't far away. The TV showed her, a misspelled handmade birthday card in hand, next to Aaron, dressed in a pirate costume, at the kitchen table in the Yulet's home.

"In national news, the search for nineteen year old Kaia Yulet was called off yesterday," the anchorwoman announced. "Authorities believe she was abducted Halloween night from her Homosassa, Florida home. Her blood was found at the scene but no other trace of the girl was recovered. In a tragic twist of fate, when the girl's aunt and uncle came upon the scene, they discovered the body of their seven year old son, Aaron Yulet, seen pictured with the missing girl. Police say the two cases are unrelated. The autopsy of little Aaron indicated he was unfortunately struck by lightning in the middle of the night."

Just like that, the next subject of interest was introduced. Kaia heard none of it. She was near-hyperventilating with the shock of actually seeing him. She took deep breaths, each exhalation a small squeak of pain emitting from her tight chest. She went to the couch, grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. Just not hearing that woman's voice helped tons. Whatever she was saying just sounded like a blur of _'In a tragic twist of fate…discovered the body…cases are unrelated…autopsy…' _Kaia walked to the kitchen blindly. Being numb was favorable to breaking into hysterics. Kaia walked through the dining room to the kitchen where Kurt was sitting on a barstool, picking at a bowl of fruit with a fork.

"Hey," he said sitting up as if he hadn't expected her to come down. She sat across the bar from him and blankly looked at him. He held the fork toward her, offering her some of the mixed fruits. She made to take it but he laid the fork down and took her upturned hand in his. She blinked repeatedly as she broke out of her daze. Kurt was wrapping her hands again. How many times had he done this for her now? She always chanced upon him when her hands decided to be a burden. She didn't know if she was eager for the wounds to scar over or not. Spending that time with Kurt was a welcome difference from her normal routine of keeping to herself in this house/school full of people. He was easier going. His eyes didn't house that speculative look most of the others flicked her way when they passed her in the hallways or the pitying smiles of Jean Grey. Laughter, something she thought wouldn't emerge from her throat for a long time, was obtainable with Kurt there.

"Why me?" he asked, breaking her train of thought. She looked down and saw him finishing the wrappings of her other hand.

"Huh?" she said, sounding stupid to herself.

"I just noticed…" he started, tying off the wrappings and picking up the fork to hand her again. "You avoid most everyone in the mansion…but me. Why's that?"

Kaia stared at him for a second, not sure if he mentioned he was a telepath anytime recently. She shrugged it off and poked at a strawberry. "I guess… I feel relaxed with you," she laughed at what she said. "Normal… like before all this happened."

He laughed. "Normal? You feel normal around _me_?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah. Kinda."

"But I'm blue, Kaia," he said as he grabbed another fork from a drawer.

"And I'm this peachy, white color. So?" she retorted, popping the strawberry into her mouth. "Skin color doesn't mean anything."

He looked at her skeptically. "This is a little different," he said. "Besides, I have fur."

She ignored him, unperturbed, looking down at the bowl to find another good piece. She settled on a honeydew cube.

He lifted his hands and wiggled his six fingers at her. "Look at my hands," he said. She rolled her eyes and held the piece of fruit in between her teeth for a second while she lifted her hands back at him, wiggling the fingers as best she could with the bandages so fresh. Kurt groaned and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. It seemed there was no convincing her how abnormal she should feel when the signs were obvious.

"Kaia, look at me!" he laughed. She glanced up. "Nothing about me is normal. My eyes are --" She cut him off as she slammed her fist on the table.

She swiped the hair from in front of her face and pointed at her eyes, the silvery-white spots glinting as her agitation grew at his inability to comprehend that she didn't care. "Don't start with me about how your _eyes _are different now!" she yelled. She took one calm breath and added, "I get that you're different. And that I should feel anything but normal around you but look around! If being in a house full of telepaths and shape shifters and every other type of mutant doesn't make me run away screaming what makes you think being around you will?"

He just stared at her for a second.

"I mean you're not all that repulsive," she joked, looking up through the hair that fell back over her eyes.

Kurt watched as she continued eating. He had been with the X-Men long enough to become accepted but still knew he stood out because of his outward appearance. He saw the looks on the new students faces when they first arrived and how they usually reacted; frightened, disturbed, openly staring as if he were blind. He stood out, to say the least. He'd never seen such open acceptance so quickly. Well, if he thought about it, she had to deal with the same thing every day since she came here. Since not many of the circumstances of her being brought to the mansion were . She was refreshing to be around.

A smile brightened his darker features. "I like you," he stated.

She stopped chewing and looked at him quizzically.

He sighed. "Not in that --" he started but she just raised her hand.

"I get it," she said. She could feel her face reddening and just barely stifled nervous giggles. They sat, eating in silence for about a minute or so before they heard the tread of tires on the hardwood floor of the hallway and turned to greet the Professor.

"Good morning," he said, wise eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned at the sight of the relatively antisocial Kaia actually smiling and getting along with someone in the mansion. The two returned his welcome. "Kaia, may I talk with you in my office?" he asked turning back the way he came.

She nodded and slipped off of her stool. She waved goodbye to Kurt as she walked out of the kitchen.

The walk down the hallway to Xavier's office was a quiet one. When they reached the office, Kaia shut the door softly as the Professor continued to wait beside his large mahogany desk. Kaia took a seat in a high backed leather chair facing Xavier, took a deep breath, and smiled cautiously.

"So, Kaia," Xavier began. "How has your stay been so far?"

"I can't tell you how grateful I am, Professor," she said, looking at her hands twisting together. "It's been great."

"Well, I _have _noticed an aversion toward most of the students. Normal under the circumstances but I am concerned about the effect it will have once you begin your studies here."

Kaia looked up slightly surprised. They had talked about completing her education at the mansion as soon as she became acclimated to living there but of course it was a topic of unease. She was noticeably worried but nodded her acceptance.

"And there is the pressing issue of when your comfort with us here will permit us to begin our training," he continued, arching his fingers thoughtfully. "I told you we would help you control your gifts and the sooner we begin, the better."

At that she almost jumped. She shook her head vehemently before Xavier even finished his statement. "I can't. I can't do that again," she spit out. "I couldn't force it out if I tried! It hurt too much… I just don't know if I can do that again."

Xavier held up a hand calmly. "I know it will be extremely difficult. Your powers emerged later in life than normal and I've come to the conclusion that that is why it was such a painful experience for you. Many mutants have had similar pain at first and their powers end up being as much a part of themselves as breathing. But you _have _used your powers after they appeared. On the very night they appeared actually."

She looked confused, her hands paused in their wringing.

"Yes, you used them when we encountered you in the park. The metal tube you were hiding in was infused with electric energy. In your panicked state, you set up some sort of a barrier between yourself and us using the tube as a conductor. It gave Jean quite a nasty shock as a matter of fact," Xavier told a perplexed Kaia.

She sighed after a moment of silence. "I just don't know, Professor."

"The longer we wait, the more of a danger you become to yourself and those around you. You should be aware of this by now."

She ran a hand through her thick, chestnut hair. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think of what would happen if her powers decided to kick up around any of the others around the mansion. She hated to hear it put that way all the same.

"I can deal with any schooling, even with my uneasy feelings around the others in classes but… I need a little time before I start to use my powers. If that's okay?" she asked. "I really want to repay you for everything but I need to kind of become less scared of them first."

"Alright. I'll be checking with you periodically and we'll start your further education soon," he gestured that she could leave if she wanted.

"But Kaia," he said. She stopped at the heavy, wooden door to the adjoining study. "It will never be a matter of repayment. Everything is for your betterment. Take your time."

She smiled sadly before she left. Even with that said, she still owed the Professor. He had given her a home and an opportunity to better herself. So she would try. As soon as she could bring up the courage, she would try her hardest to control what was inside of her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Her nose wrinkled in disgust but she kept walking. The subway tunnel smelled disgusting, but she couldn't leave now. She had to do this. Sweat trickled between her breasts. Not because it was hot, it was actually very cold, but because she was nervous. It had been a few years since she had done this in such a public place.

She came to stand on the platform, watching trains flash past her. As she waited she tried not to think about what she was going to do. It made her sick knowing this was the life she had chosen for herself. She had became a vigilante of sorts, or maybe a punisher of crimes that have not been committed yet. And why not? She might as well put her mutation to use. Mutants. That was something that was new to her but she knew that she was one of them. She had never met anyone like her, but mutants were different like her. So she did that, used her mutations to become the vigilante that she was.

It was disgusting, she knew, but after living this long she had become numb to what she did. It was just doing it in public places that always got to her. It may be late, it may be empty other than her victim, and yes they were a victim, or it may be the one chance at closing time the cart would be full. She wouldn't know, her vision didn't tell her how they would die, just that they deserved to die before they committed the deed that she foresaw.

After a few minutes of waiting train A slowed to a stop on the platform. She stood there and waited for the door to open. Once it did she tried to enter, but stopped suddenly. This was not a the car she needed to be in. She knew that because she would have had a vision, the same vision that has been haunting her for two weeks now. She looked to the right, nothing. To the left, and it was as if her feet moved for her as the vision took over. She stopped at the next door, nothing. The next, nothing. Finally she made it to the door of the fourth car before the doors closed. She looked around and her fears dissipated. There was only one other person in the cart. A man wearing that face that haunted her.

The subway started to move and she started toward the man. Those dark brown eyes burned her like they did in the vision. Remember he is going to kill his children and his wife, she reassured herself. That is what the vision was: this man killing his children and his wife with his mutation, which was controlling others. One day he will snap, and control his pleading wife to kill his children and herself as he sits alone in an arm chair, beer in hand, a smile on his face.

He smiled up at her now. The way he smiled in her vision. Her stomach made a flip.

Marcela stopped a few feet away from him.

"I hate ridding the subway this late at night. Don't know who you will run into. Glad that you look normal." he said, trying to make small talk.

"Normal?" she asked. "Well as normal as anyone can be, especially since there are mutants now. But you also don't look like a street thug." he laughed. Her lips tugged into a tight smile.

"Mutants can look normal." she said holding onto a pole as the train slowed at its first stop. Thankfully, he didn't get off and no one got on.

"Yes, they can I guess." he said off handedly like he was done talking about mutants.

"I mean, you should know." she said as her dark violet eyes bore into him. It unsettled him, it was like she was searing his soul with her eyes.

"Am I obvious?" he asked.

"No, just in my visions you are. So tell me, how many people have you controlled?" she asked.

"Many. Too many in fact. So why are you here?" he asked, knowing this was no longer a nice stranger talking to a nice stranger this late in the subway.

"I am here to kill you." she whispered as she sat next to him.

He tensed and looked at her. He tried to get in her mind to control her but couldn't. He looked at her confused. _Why wasn't his mutation not working on her? _

"I don't understand it either." she said answering his unasked question.

"So, why are you going to kill me?" reality setting in as he asked his question. He had done many bad things to people in the past, so he might as well repent for them some day, he just didn't expect it would be so soon.

"I will show you. Give me your hand." she said has as she held her hand out for him.

He looked at her hand like it was on fire. After a moments hesitation he gave her his hand. Their fingers laced together and she closed her eyes after ordering him to do the same. She wasn't sure how this worked but she had found out forty years ago if she had contact with someone she could show them her visions. So she did this now to him.

_He sat in his favorite arm chair, a cold beer in hand, but not touched. His eyes were a milky white, like they always turned when he controlled someone. He could see through his wife's eyes. He made her enter his children's bedroom silently. His twin boys were asleep, in their shared room. They looked so peaceful in their sleep. That was until made his wife, his sweet Silvia, raise a butcher's knife in the air and bring it down on Joey, the oldest twin. The knife hit home in Joey's heart. _In the vision he saw himself smile wickedly but in real life he wanted to scream. Was he going to do this? He wanted to ask questions but the vision wasn't over yet.

_Over and over again he made her stab the already dead Joey. Michael woke up and cried. "Mommy? What are you-" she cut him off by slashing out and slicing Michael's mouth open. He cried in pain and Silvia cried as she was forced to look at her child, wearing a sick smile now that she had sliced him. But it wasn't her, it was him. He was making her do it all. _

"Make it stop!" he cried, but it didn't stop.

_Through Silvia, his dear Silvia, he made her kill Michael, who all the while screamed for help until he took his last breath and, even after, Silvia continued to stab him over and over again. After a few minutes he made her slit her own wrists. He sat down stairs and waited until she too died._

That is when it stopped. It was the end of the vision. Marcela looked at the man. He was crying, and still holding her hand, which was good because she had a job to finish here.

"So you see. You have to die." she said. He nodded. He understood. Some did, some didn't She was glad he understood, she hated having to deal with the ones that didn't. The last mutant who didn't she had to hold to her until they dissipated into nothing but ash.

"Can you do one thing for me though?" he asked

"Yes." she whispered.

"Just find a way to tell them I loved them dearly." he said.

"I will do that." she said.

And then she unleashed her building power into him. She closed her eyes. She didn't want to watch. She had seen it enough to know every detail of what happened to her victims. She felt his muscles contracting though, she heard his bones snapping. She heard him exhale and cry in pain. She also felt when he expanded and slowly dissipated like the rest of them did. When she opened her eyes there was nothing else but his ashes sitting next to her.


	5. Chapter 4: Training Begins

**AN: About time right? We never left, nor gave up. We are just very particular on what we write. Therefore this may take forever for us to finish. But expect greatness! Please let us know what you think :)**

Life was beginning to become meaningless to her. She sat in a small park where people came to get in their early morning jog, or just meet with old friends to share a bench with. She sat on a warn bench by herself under a tall oak tree pretending to read a book. Her eyes stared blankly at the pages. She couldn't even bring herself to try to read the book. She was sure it was good, filled with well rounded characters, and swell plot points that would keep her reading if she would just try.

She was distracted though. She could still smell death all around her. The noxious smell seemed to cling to her like a unwanted lover. It was sickening but try as she might she couldn't rid herself of the smell. She knew she was no different from the mutants she killed from her visions, but her purpose was just. It was something that she had come to believe in.

At first she had a hard time doing it. Yet eventually she became accustomed to it, numb to be honest. It hardly affected her while she was snuffing out the life of the individual that she had hunted down. What bothered her was the aftermath. Sometimes it took several washes to get the ash out of her hair. Like now she would feel the ash on her face from the man in the subway that she had taken last night. She had killed him and had come to sit on the bench and had not moved since then.

Sometimes it was the hardest thing was dealing with the visions she had. It was hard to believe that some of the people she killed would actually do some of the heinous things that she witnessed. Even though she no longer had the vision of the man in the subway, she couldn't get the smile he had given her in the vision as he killed his wife and children. She couldn't comprehend what would have made him snap to do that.

Giggling caught her attention. She looked up to see a little girl playing with her father. He was chasing her around making pretend monster noises. Both were smiling, laughing. He caught her, picking her up and spun her around. She giggled excitedly as he laughed. Marcela frowned. _Marcela you are more than worthless to me. _Her husband's words still to this day haunted her. Emptiness pitted itself in her stomach. She would never have that. Something so precious was never to be hers.

She watched the duo with envy. She became exhausted watching all their love. She wouldn't know that love. She would only be afforded these moments where she got to watch others love.

As she watched the girl and her father play and laugh together, she wondered if she could have ever have had that back in Russia if she had birthed anything but stillborn children. _Probably not_. Her husband had been an abusive drunkard, he might have had money and standing in society, but he was nothing but a worthless man who found his joys in his drink. He beat her sometimes and she at first always fought back, until he broke her spirit. He did that through the fact that she started to swell with his child.

She did not understand then why both children where stillborn, she had figured it was because of her for some reason. Years later she started to form a more logical theory. She wasn't going to birth living children if her husband beat her when she was swollen with child. She could never be sure if that was the real reason, but it made sense.

She sighed and stood on unsteady legs. Her muscles were cramped from sitting for so long and her back hurt as well. She stretched and after a moment her body worked out the cramps as quickly as she got them. She then turned and went to leave. She threw the book in the trash. She wouldn't read it anyways even though she wanted to. She couldn't afford the happiness she would get from reading it.

_Worthless._ His words said in her head nearly like a broken record. Maybe it was true. Maybe she really was worthless. She had been doing this for years now, and still she kept having visions of terrible things. And she killed those Mutants from her visions. Would it ever stop? Would her life ever mean something more than just being a self proclaimed vigilante? _Worthless_.

She caught one last glance of the happiness of the father and daughter that were behind her before she exited the gates of the park. She tried to let herself be happy that she hadn't had a vision in the last few hours since she had taken the subway man's life. But the times she didn't have visions she did nothing with her life other than wander aimlessly. She was still in New York. She had made her way into Brooklyn, found a quaint hotel to stay in when she had crossed the bridge. She went to her room, wrestled with the key in the door knob before it clicked open. She walked into the room and shut the door behind her with her foot. She didn't bother to look around the room as she went and sat on the bed.

Finally, she let herself cry. She needed someone to save her, she realized desperately. She needed to be saved from herself. She wished she knew what to do. She was lonely and going insane. She had not been lonely for minutes, or hours, or days. She had been lonely for years. She had little to no contact with people other than the mutants she killed. Tears streaked through the remnants of ash on her face and she drew her legs up so she could wrap her arms tightly around them. She lay her head on her knees and let the tears drip onto her jeans.

Depression wasn't good for someone who wouldn't die. Not that she had tried killing herself. That would show weakness, something she would never do. She may be sitting on her rented bed, alone and crying, yet she was not weak. She just wished that one day she would come across the one Mutant that she couldn't kill. The one Mutant that in turn would kill her, let her ascend into another life where she wasn't so alone.

Death would be sweet, she theorized. She could probably find happiness in it. She wondered what would be waiting for her in the afterlife. Would it really be what the Christians believed? If so, surely only hell waited for her. She had killed, so death would probably only bring more suffering. But would it be sweeter to pay for her crimes? Would it be better to pay for her sins, than making others pay for theirs that they hadn't even committed yet?

Her life was a jumbled mess and it wasn't going to look any brighter. Her mind was too twisted from the years of killing for her to hope for anything else but death. She glanced up and her eyes landed on a mirror. She started at her features in the mirror, a look of disgust crept across her pretty heart shaped face. She looked the same for the most part. If she looked like she had aged at all from 1939, the year her powers unleashed, it only looked like she had aged 4 years.

Again, she prayed for death. It was hard facing herself year after year knowing that she looked nearly the same. She would love to be some hideous creature that people mocked behind her back. Yet she found herself pleasing to the eye. She had always been pretty. Even her abusive husband who tried to kill her admitted to her several times that she was pleasing to look at. She was not gorgeous by any means, she just had this simple beauty about her.

Her hair was as black as jet and was slightly curly. She liked to wear her hair up in a ponytail or a bun but today she had it down. Her hair swept around her shoulders and ended near her mid back and elbows. Her complexion was pale from the lack of sun. Years ago she had a tan, even if it were just a slight tan, but it had faded away. And then her eyes which her husband had only told her one time were beautiful; he had said that on their wedding day while her mother was standing close. They were a dark tyrian purple or a dark violet, it mainly depended on the light.

Marcela turned her eyes from her reflection and downcast her gaze to the floor. Tears started anew and she hugged her legs closer to her. She couldn't hold back the sob that escaped her lips. After awhile she ended up laying down still in her clothes, crying softly.

She finally fell asleep after an hour of crying in her own self pity.

xXx

_Thud. _Pause. _Thud-thud_. Kaia had kept up a rhythm with the punching bag for 20 minutes now and was straining to continue. She threw one more right at it before groaning and sinking to the floor. She ran her hands through her hair and panted, a bead of sweat dripping off her nose.

"Do you think an opponent would let you take a breather?" Storm asked. Her normal sweet disposition almost vanished where matters of defense were concerned.

"No!" Kaia said, frustrated. She was already disappointed in herself. It wasn't the difficulty of the training, it was the restrictions of her body. She had jumped from a small town in Florida to… well she wasn't exactly sure what she was training to be but it was definitely altogether different. It would take a lot of work for her strength to catch up with her willpower.

Storm then softened, moving away from her position against the door frame of the gym to walk towards the tired girl in front of her. "In the long run," she said, "your strength would amount to nothing if you couldn't get close enough to the enemy to attack. They _will _use their powers against you. You really should start your more… extensive training soon. So you'll be able to fight fire with fire."

Kaia stilled and looked up at Storm, unhappy that she couldn't do more for the woman trying to help her. "I'm just afraid of the pain," she admitted after a lengthy pause. "I don't want that feeling again. It was like… Feeling your whole body catch fire from the inside out until something inside you explodes and everything goes black. I couldn't speak… I could hardly breathe…" Reliving the experience caused her to choke up and face the floor again, tears falling down her cheeks.

Storm knelt beside Kaia and put a hand lightly on her knee. "But you don't have to be afraid of that pain anymore. The Professor said-"

"I know what he said." Kaia said abruptly and then fell silent, automatically remorseful for her tone. Storm had taken the time to train her privately, away from the other students until she was ready. Just one more thing Kaia felt was a deed for which she owed more than just her gratitude. She opened her mouth to apologize but Storm grinned.

"What if the Professor is wrong? Could I go through that without dying?" Kaia asked softly, more to herself than for an actual answer she knew she couldn't expect. She looked out the bay window into the backyard.

It was mid-November. The weather kept getting colder since she'd arrived at the mansion and now puddles of slush were spotting the ground. Kaia took a deep breath in and calmed herself. She owed these people her all and she owed it to herself to try to understand and live with whatever was inside of her. She felt her power beneath the surface of her skin when her emotions increased, coursing through her veins and tingling in the palms of her hands and in her fingertips. She curled her hands into fists, suddenly resolute in what she had to do. She had to just jump in or else the fear would rule every facet of her life. Her eyes were vivid as she looked at Storm and said "Okay."

Storm gave Kaia a wide smile. She walked over, laid a hand on her shoulder, and stated; "We need Logan."

They made their way down the hallways to the elevator behind the master staircase. Every step Kaia took made her more and more anxious. She was already tired from the physical training in the gym but if she hesitated, gave her thoughts even one day to settle, she would lose her nerve. If she didn't do this now, she thought, she would never find out what she could do.

The mahogany paneling in front of the steel doors of the elevator shifted with a hiss of air, the elevator opening not a second after. They entered and Storm hit a rectangular white button under the two directional buttons. The cabin hardly even shuddered when it started it's descent.

"Where are we going?" Kaia asked. She hadn't seen Logan very often since her stay at the mansion began but she didn't think his room would be in the basement. There were plenty of rooms upstairs.

"Logan should be in the Danger Room," Storm replied. "The lower levels of the mansion are where we work on honing our special skills as mutants. Logan doesn't like to sit still. He'll be in the simulator, training."

"And how is he going to help me?" she asked.

"His regenerative powers will be of more help when it comes to offensive attacks on your part. He can recover from the damage if your powers get out of hand," Storm said, patting Kaia on the shoulder with a smile. Kaia was not quite so reassured of her decision after hearing that her powers may 'get out of hand' and she definitely did not want to put anyone at risk of injury, or worse. Her temerity must have shown on her face because Storm laughed lightly and said "Don't worry. He's been through worse. He should be willing to help you."

Upon exiting the elevator, Kaia had to squint at the brightness of her surroundings. Long hallways opened to all sides entirely made of a silvery metal, a modern and extreme contrast to the dark, wooden homey feeling of the ground floor. The ceilings weren't very high and were arched circularly all the way to the floor giving one the feeling they were walking through a metal pipe. They walked down the largest hallway straight ahead with no sound but the tap of their feet on the reflective, grey floor and were about to turn down a corridor to the right when the circular door in front of them parted with a hydraulic hiss. The Professor emerged from the mostly dark room with a stern look on him face.

"Kaia, if I could see you in here for a moment," he said. "There's something I'd like to show you." Storm must have sensed the urgency in his tone and put a hand on Kaia's shoulder to guide her into the dark room. When the Professor's chair passed into the room, track lights sprang up to illuminate the walkway in front of them. The rest of the room adopted a dark blue hue to it and it revealed that they appeared to be inside of a massive globe, the walkway suspended in midair leading to a console. Kaia reeled as she looked to the edges of the walkway and the room seemed to disappear into an endless void. When they reached the console, the Professor lifted a modified helmet to rest on his head.

"This is Cerebro," he said gesturing to the machine. "I can use my telepathy to observe the movements of mutants around the globe. More importantly, I can trace mutants that may pose a danger to themselves and others using the signals they emit when using their powers."

"This is how you found me?" Kaia asked. Xavier nodded in affirmation then turned to face the console. He shut his eyes and took a few deep breaths before a hologram type image of a globe appeared in the empty space in the center of the domed room. It rotated to face the United States, then zoomed to focus on the state of New York.

"There has been a particular signal that follows an odd pattern I have been tracing for some time now," he explained. "It flares with a typical signal strength for anywhere from two to ten minutes. There are glimpses of erratic images, emotions. It will die down and the individual will move, sometimes miles away, whereupon they will emit a massive signal. Just focusing on it is difficult enough. Then they are on the move again."

The view of the state focused in closer on the Brooklyn area, where a bright red dot pulsed with power. Different voices could be heard, angry and sad. Images were smoky and indistinct. Then it ended and the glow returned to normal but the foggy image of a person moved restlessly and left the area, to go who knows where.

"I believe this indistinction of form is caused by the mutants' ability to see others' actions. They are confused and distraught. Typically, mutants are stable enough to get a physical description but this one is constantly on the move."

"So why focus on just this one mutant if they're so hard to pin down?" Kaia asked.

"Because this particular mutant leaves death in their path. Review of reports in that area reveal death after a visit from this spectre. The deaths have to be related to the intense power that radiates next in the pattern. Whatever they are doing, it's killing people. Seemingly innocuous people at that."

"So… this is what you do here?" Kaia asked, overwhelmed by the enormity of the images in front of her. "Why show me this now?"

Xavier relaxed slightly seeing the image in a stable position for a moment and adjusted to face Kaia. "To speed up your training," he answered. "I see a resolve in you to improve yourself. We just need that improvement sooner than expected." He turned to face the image in front of them once again. "Whatever this is, we need to move in search of it now. It's not long before they're on the move and we will need all the force we have to confront it."

xXx

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn:

"_Whore! You are nothing but a whore! How could you cheat on me?" he yelled. She stood there crying. _

"_I am not a whore! Why didn't you tell me you were a Mutant before? We are not the same you and I!" she screamed back. She could tell that her words hurt him. He couldn't help that he was a Mutant, but she wanted nothing to do with him. On impulse, his fingers tingled. He wanted to wrap his hands around her throat. He also wanted to use his mutation on her. His mutation was his strength. One hit and he could demolish her. _

_She knew that too. But yet she still egged him on. "Are you going to hit me?" she asked. A wicked smile spread on her too pretty face that he had fallen in love with. She knew it was hard for him to control his anger but she felt secure that he wouldn't retaliate towards her because he loved her. He growled at her, which almost scared her but her blood was pumping. She suddenly wanted him to hit her. It would give her a reason to never see him again. _

_She didn't know his strength, but he did. "I hate you. I hate all mutants," she said as she crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. Tears welled up in his sea green eyes. She had seemed like the only woman who would ever accept him. She had loved him so tenderly. But now? She was no different from the rest of them. His mind willed him to leave but his body remained still. His heart wanted revenge, revenge for making him hurt this much even though his mind told him to leave at once. _

"_I never loved you!" she screamed at him, she knew it would really hurt him. It was a lie though, she even now still loved him. She was just so against what he really was. Her words smacked him. He couldn't take it anymore. He wrapped his hands around her neck and picked her up off the ground. _

"_Don't lie to me bitch!" he snapped. She couldn't breathe, not even a little gasp of breath would come to her. He was even controlling his mutation, and he was still too strong. She had underestimated him greatly. Her eyes bulged in fear as she stared down at him still trying to breathe._

_He let her go and she fell to her knees, gasping for air. She couldn't though. He had crushed her windpipe. She clawed at her throat, trying to inhale. Even though he was no longer strangling her, she was still choking to death by the damage he had done to her. _

_It gave him a sick pleasure to watch her start to turn colors as she lost oxygen in her body. After a minute he could no longer take it though. He wanted her to suffer, but he still had a soft spot for her. She was going to die no matter what though. He had crushed her throat in his rage. He was going to have to put her out of her, as well as his, misery. He pushed her over, sprawled onto her back. Her eyes bulged up at him. _

_It was an excruciating feeling to not be able to breathe. But it was going to be over soon. He pressed his shoed foot to her skull. _

"_I loved you," he whispered as he pressed down on her skull. Instantly it began to crush under pressure. It cracked like a frozen body of water under stress, and she went to scream, but she had no breath to do so. A gurgling noise instead resided in her throat. He continued to press down until her skull split open, tearing her scalp open as well. Blood seeped everywhere. On the floor of his room, his shoe, and the bottom of his pants leg. He kept applying pressure until all sounds of crunching stopped.. _

_By the end she was dead, and he was standing in a mixture of bone, blood, and brain matter. He stared down at her with no remorse on his face. In his mind, she deserved to die if she didn't accept him for who he was. _

Marcela woke up in a cold sweat. It was a vision. It was a very detailed vision which was unusual. Usually her visions were shorter, or just in fragments she had to piece together. But this one had been so vivid, so realistic. And it left her feeling gross, and sick, literally sick. She ran to the bathroom to throw up. She barely made it over the toilet before she spilled her guts into it. She couldn't get the gore out of her mind. But it was set though. She had to track this person down. She had to before something so sick happened. Maybe this was her purpose in life.

She felt an ounce better by the thought of killing this Mutant before it happened. She couldn't quite blame him though. She did the same to her husband, but she highly doubted that his wife was beating him, like her husband had beaten her. She wiped away her feelings with cold water and a towel, and stood up to stare at herself in the hotel's mirror. She looked ragged, and she was. She needed to shower, and still hadn't done so. She needed more than two hours of sleep, but it didn't look like she was going to get any. She turned out of the bathroom and started to gather her things. She had to leave now. She had to begin looking now.

She glanced at the clock as she was leaving and it was only a few hours after she had entered the room. She needed to rest yet she needed to leave. She stood there for a moment torn on what she needed to do but she decided to depart. The sooner this man was found the better.


End file.
